tan_cl

That looks fabulous. How do you cook the black rice and what kind is it? Negi toro don is definitely one of my favourite dishes - since we're on the subject, is the rice that you use for negi toro don sushi rice (i.e cooked and prepared as though for sushi, with vinegar and sugar) or is it just regular rice? I'd like to get my rice right - somehow, I find it always either too hard or too soft when I cook it. Do you have the correct proportions of water to rice? Sorry, a bit off the topic, I know! As for the chile sauce, I'm not so sure it's sriracha sauce since I find sriracha faintly sweet but the spicy negi toro I tried is spicy without being sweet. Emeril Lagasse has a somewhat similar recipe for it that uses "hot chile paste" - again, no idea what kind of chile he's referring to. Is spicy tuna rice common in Japan? I figured it probably isn't very traditional but I thought it might be at least as old as say, omu rice or katsu curry.

I've always enjoyed negi toro don (minced fatty tuna and spring onions on sushi rice) but recently, the Japanese chef at my regular place asked me to try the spicy negi toro don. This is now my absolute favourite dish and I'm wondering how to make it at home. The chef said all I had to do was add chile but I suspect it's not just standard raw chile puree that he's talking about but some sort of chili sauce. Any one have any idea what sort of chile they use for this spicy negi toro don? I suppose Tabasco would be sacrilegious?

My favourite beriani - (not going to get into the debate of whether or not it's truly Malaysian - Mamak-style or Indian-style or Arab-style) no longer exists - I use to go to Kassim's along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman back in the late 70's/early 80's - each plate was huge, with a chunk of mutton buried inside the rice . The biggest treat was to be able to sit in the air-conditioned dining room on the third floor, away from the "plebs" on the ground floor! Then one day, I realised it had disappeared and there was, instead a Restoran Bismi there. Bismi is about the closest I can get to that style of nasi beriani now. I know a lot of people say that Insaf - those two Mamak restaurants on the opposite side of Jalan TAR - is good but I've always found their rice a bit too oily. Have also heard about this mythical place in the back streets of Jalan Masjid India where they cook the meat with the rice in huge tin cauldrons and dole it out at lunch-time to a long queue of diners.......but haven't found it yet.

Just out of interest, what are all these bread improvers, softeners, etc. made of? Do they really help? Chinese bread recipes generally call for ammonia bicarbonate - the kind that really stings your nostrils - and I've added it to my breads but didn't notice anything different about it so I now generally ignore it in recipes. Maybe that's the reason why I can't get a soft crust?

Love the wow pao idea, tho. Too bad I'm too far from Chicago to try it! Not sure what humbau is, though. Sounds like steamed char siew pao. But I'm actually after the baked Asian breads!

Thanks all. Torakris - thanks for the welcome - you noticed this was my first ever post To clarify/confirm, I was talking about the Asian-style baked (not steamed) breads. Your link to the Japanese breads was interesting. And Torakris - the link you provided was spot-on - those are the kinds of breads I'm after, where the crust is golden, soft, the texture almost cotton or cake-like. I buy lots of those Japanese breads - the brioche-like sandwich loaves with inch-thick slices, those soft raisin loaves. I do brush egg/egg yolk on breads gives it a lovely golden crust, but I find it has the effect of hardening the crust as well. I've tried various permutations of the bread dough - adding ammonium bicarbonate (as HK bakeries do), kneading it for a long time, cake flour, brushing it with butter both before and after baking and covering it with a cloth - but the best I have gotten is a soft crust that gradually hardens. I'm thinking it must be either the water or flour that I'm using or maybe just me, since no one else seems to have this problem! Some books also recommend milk powder in the dough, others talk about adding bread improvers (I've heard Lora Brody's bread improver is very good). But no success, sigh! Do you suppose the magic is in the fingers then?

Hi, I'm wondering if the pastry experts can help me with a conundrum that I've had since I started baking bread fifteen years ago. I'm not a commercial baker and have always been fascinated by those soft breads served in Asian bakeries - the very soft crusted baked barbecued pork and other buns in Chinese bakeries, the golden very fine soft-crust Japanese breads that go by a variety of names such as Milk Bun, Butter top, English loaf, etc. I have no problems creating the hard crust for breads like French loaves, foccacia, etc. but I simply cannot get a long-lasting soft crust like the Asian bakeries. I was told to use lots of butter in a pastry kitchen where I previously worked and it worked for a while but after the bread cooled, it became [permanently] hard-crusted. Perhaps it's the quality of the flour that I use? Can anyone help?